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The New Zealand historian, Michael King, describes the Māori as "the last major human community on earth untouched and unaffected by the wider world". [50] Besides a brief offshore skirmish with Abel Tasman in 1642, the first encounter with the outside world took place with Captain Cook's party on his first voyage in 1769, followed by later ...
A feature that has been put forward as evidence of pre-Polynesian settlers is the Kaimanawa Wall, which some claim is a remnant of ancient human construction that the Māori could not have built because they did not build with stone in such a way. [51] [52] The wall formation was inspected by an archaeologist and a geologist.
The effect of contact on Māori varied. In some inland areas life went on more or less unchanged, although a European metal tool such as a fish-hook or hand axe might be acquired through trade with other tribes. At the other end of the scale, tribes that frequently encountered Europeans, such as Ngāpuhi in Northland, underwent major changes. [43]
Mātauranga was traditionally preserved through spoken language, including songs, supplemented carving weaving, and painting, including tattoos. [10] Since colonisation, mātauranga has been preserved and shared through writing, first by non-Māori anthropologists and missionaries, then by Māori.
Rapid urbanisation has led to the creation of main population centres on the flatter eastern coast and in the high inland plains between the mountain ranges. This has been accompanied with immense social change in Otago's population, similar but distinct to the rest of New Zealand. The boundaries of Otago have changed over time.
The culture of New Zealand is a synthesis of indigenous Māori, colonial British, and other cultural influences.The country's earliest inhabitants brought with them customs and language from Polynesia, and during the centuries of isolation, developed their own Māori and Moriori cultures.
The Waitangi Tribunal has called the bill a severe breach of the treaty, warning it would limit Maori rights, reduce social cohesion and damage the Maori-Crown relationship. Act party has ...
Due to New Zealand's geographic isolation, several centuries passed before the next phase of settlement, that of Europeans. Only then did the original inhabitants need to distinguish themselves from the new arrivals, using the adjective "māori" which means "ordinary" or "indigenous" which later became a noun although the term New Zealand native was common until about 1890.